EU citrus sector requests compensation for South Africa agreement

The so-called Spanish-French-Italian Citrus Contact Group, which has met in Valencia, agreed to ask the European Commission (EC) for the future implementation of some kind of compensatory measures to alleviate, even in part, the negative impact that the recent agreement between the European Union (EU) and the Southern African Development Community will have. During this citrus summit, the representatives of the Italian, French and Spanish agricultural authorities also decided to ask the EC to draw up a study on the impact of this agreement (in particular of the important concessions granted to South Africa to allow it to introduce its citrus fruit into the EU market) on the European citrus fruit sector as a whole. They also regretted that such an impact study has not been carried out or presented before the agreement was reached.